Chapter 25 In Other Arms

The baby was never only mine.

They greeted baby Catherine first as we entered the restaurant in Abrantes.

“Olha só! Tão querida!”

Then us.

“Olá Teresinha! Luís!” My sisters-in-law took the child from my arms even as they were greeting us, passing her between them, holding her close to their cheeks.

We were shown to a table already crowded with bread, olives, rissóis and croquetes. Luís pulled out a chair for me, but Catherine was still moving from one pair of arms to another.

Children wove between the tables, slipping under chairs, reappearing at elbows. A toddler from the next table came over to look at her. Maria Beatriz tore off a piece of bread and handed it to him, “Toma, amorzinho.” He grabbed it with a chubby hand and, suddenly shy, ran back to his table to hide in his mother’s arms, peeking out with wide eyes, chewing the bread slowly.

Catherine had started to grizzle. Maria Beatriz had already draped a cloth over my shoulder before she was placed in my arms. I fed her at the edge of the table, Maria Beatriz watching and adjusting the cloth over the baby’s head.

The men had gathered at the far end of the table and were discussing the wine list.

“Devias experimentar este vinho tinto do Alentejo. Pêra Manca. Eeeh, pá! Isto é outra coisa.”

When he was talking to his brothers-in-law, Luís’ voice was louder, deeper, I noticed. I would tease him later.

Meanwhile, my sisters-in-law, Ana, Patrícia and Marta, were feeding their children with titbits from the table, and discussing the dishes to share.

Catherine had finished feeding, and Maria Beatriz had taken her from me, wiping a corner of her milky mouth, while she walked round with her, patting her back.

After a while Catherine began to fuss.

“Dá-me cá,” someone said, but this time I reached for her. I knew what that meant.

I looked around. There was nowhere to go. No changing table, no quiet corner, no room set aside. Just the table, the chairs, the hum of voices, the smell of food.

I hesitated.

“Vai aí!” Ana was pointing to a quiet corner at the end of the dining room and pulled out the changing mat. And that was that.

A week later, I was back at the school in Porto, Catherine in the carrycot. My friends Antonia, Susan and Katy chatted to me in the teacher’s room, but only Antonia picked her up. Hannah lifted her head to say a brief hello, then bent over the desk, colouring cards for her children’s class.

John and Peter, new teachers that year, smiled and joked about the extra classes they had taken on, and Lennie came out of his office. He peered at the baby.

“Does she sleep at night? Because I remember mine. I don’t think I slept for a month.”

“Just one?”

“It was hard enough.” And he disappeared back into his office.

Catherine grizzled.

“Does anyone mind if I feed her?”

John grunted, Peter left the room, and everyone else bent over their books and papers.

Hannah lifted her head again.

“I’m glad mine are over and done with. I wouldn’t want to go through that again.”

I turned to face the wall and, with a cloth over my shoulder, fed Catherine in a corner, sitting on a long plastic bench. Then I changed her on the same bench, on a changing mat.

Antonia handed me a glass of milk. “I used to get so thirsty when Rodrigo was young!”

Lennie popped his head round the door.

“Teresa, can I have a quick word?”

Antonia took Catherine from me, carefully, and held her over her shoulder.

I sat in Lennie’s dark office, and he leaned forward over his pile of papers.

“I’ve had a complaint,” he said.

“I won’t say who. But someone said they felt very uncomfortable with you feeding and changing the baby in the teacher’s room. After all…” he paused.

“This is a school.”